Citrix XenDesktop Platinum Edition is ideal for customers looking to implement desktops as a service from the data center. Platinum Edition adds extensive optimization, security, monitoring and end user support benefits to create the ultimate desktop experience and best overall product value. This edition also includes the Citrix EasyCall technology, giving users instant click-to-call capability from any application, as well as a built in on-demand remote assistance feature that allows support staff to see exactly what end users see if a problem occurs, chat with them in real time, and even take permission-based control of the end-user's mouse and keyboard to walk them through a problem resolution live.

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Rated 3 out of 5 by VirtualizationEng641 from It improved application response time and used a lot less bandwidth. Better QA, please.Valuable Features:ICA and HDX are the most valuable features of this product to me. These protocols allow features that most other vendors either have not implemented yet or are too bandwidth-intensive to use in the enterprise with WAN users.Improvements to My Organization:Our organization was a VMView shop. Due to issues with application responsiveness / perceived performance, our users had a very negative perception of the technology and were opting for physical PCs instead of VDI. During an extended pilot with these users leveraging Citrix XenDestop, we were able to improve the perceived performance / application response time, as well as use significantly less bandwidth. This was a huge cost savings for the firm.Room for Improvement:The biggest area for improvement is in QA testing. The last few releases of either the VDA or updates to the broker either reduced functionality or re-introduced issues that were previously addressed.Use of Solution:I have been using this solution for five years.Stability Issues:The only issue that we had was early on in our implementation with a “Black Screen”. Although we were never able to determine the root cause with Citrix Tech support and escalated engineering, updating form 5.6 to 7.6 greatly reduced this issue / impact to our users.Technical Support:I rate technical support 5/10.Initial Setup:The initial setup was straightforward. We were able to get three farms up and running within two hours. The migration from older to newer was relatively easy as well.Implementation Team:Implementation was done in house. My best advice if you are migrating from another product to XenDesktop would be to deploy new VDI’s and migrate the users. This allows you to validate the stack and avoid legacy configuration and applications that might have issues. If that is not an option, researching what the VDI’s have installed, and what other remoting technologies are in use, will prove valuable and avoid some of the pitfalls that we had.ROI:ROI I believe is close to three years.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Date published: 2017-06-23

Rated 4 out of 5 by Fazal Ur Rehman Shah from It provides a secure desktop to remote users, and licensing is competitively priced.Valuable Features:The most valuable feature of this product to me is its ability to provide a secure desktop to remote users.Improvements to My Organization:The product has allowed the organisation to provide VDs for external users to access internal resources and manage them.Room for Improvement:The product deployment is role-based and I would like to see the roles reduced.Use of Solution:I have used this solution for 18 months.Deployment Issues:We had some issue with SCVMM, which is used to manage the Citrix infrastructure. We also faced an issue with the VDs being unregistered due to different reasons.Technical Support:Citrix support is very good. You open a case online and then give them a call. An engineer works with you until the issue is resolved. I quite like it.Previous Solutions:This is our first VD deployment.Initial Setup:Initial setup was straightforward, but we did face some issues. As it is role-based setup, one needs to follows it properly, and do the sizing right to get it working.Implementation Team:The product was implemented by a solution provider along with the server hardware as part of the project.We implemented the product to check the feasibility and acceptability of VD in our organisation.Cost and Licensing Advice:The product licensing is competitively priced.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Date published: 2017-05-11

Rated 4 out of 5 by Serdar G ksu from It is flexible, easy to manage and faster than the alternatives.Improvements to My Organization:You can manage all devices and users in your company. You can respond rapidly to user requests. If you use the thin client, you can save energy.You can simulate disaster scenarios for our virtual world and you can increase your virtual security.Room for Improvement:You can create Linux virtual desktops with XenDesktop, but only Red Hat and SUSE versions. I would like to be able to create Linux virtual desktops for VMs running Ubuntu, Kali and other Linux versions. Citrix should add this features to the next version.I would like applications to open faster. Citrix can increase applications' startup time.Use of Solution:I have been using XenDesktop for nine years.Stability Issues:I had a stability issue with Citrix XenServer. If you experience a problem with XenServer, you must know Linux commands, unlike with VMWare ESX. You can solve any problem with the GUI on VMWare ESX. With Citrix, it must be developed.Initial Setup:Citrix has a very easy setup GUI in versions 7.x.Implementation Team:Implementation varies from company to company. If you have more than 10,000 users in your company, I prefer to perform implementation in-house.Cost and Licensing Advice:Regarding Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop licenses:* Example 1 - You have 100 users in your company. If all workers use Citrix products during work time, you can select the Citrix user/device license. (For any company.)* Example 2 - If your company uses a shift system (60 workers in the morning, 40 workers at night), you can use a Citrix concurrent license. (For example, any university.)Other Solutions Considered:This Citrix product is flexible, easy to manage and faster than similar products such as VMWare Horizon.Other Advice:The initial installation plan should be well-done. It must be well-constructed and it must be very well-optimized. Anyone can install this product, but not everyone can manage this product.My rating refers to version 7.x of the product. I rate earlier versions lower.Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:My company is a Citrix Gold Partner.

Date published: 2016-11-01

Rated 4 out of 5 by Edgar Parra from The Provisioning Services and Machine Creation Services features allow you to provision workloads by following a wizard, and depending of what you have in your environment.Valuable Features:The Provisioning Services and Machine Creation Services features allow you to provision workloads just by following a wizard, and most importantly depending of what you have in your environment, either a below average network (Machine Creation Services) or fast and large storage (Provisioning Services). You are able to use either one of them to improve the time it takes to build workloads and make them available to users.Improvements to My Organization:One of our clients where we implemented XenDesktop has a highly mobile fleet of users, and providing access to shared desktops either via Wyse terminals or tablets has really shown what a difference in improving efficiency and reliability can do to a system. What we love the most about XenDesktop is the simple and easy way to scale on-demand depending on the workload.Room for Improvement:Citrix Director, which is like the monitoring interface from Citrix could use a revamp in the way that it displays information. The display is not very intuitive, and it could also have better integration with SCOM via Comtrade MP (now Citrix) and other monitoring tools. This is in progress with v7.8 using SNMP traps which will allow Director to talk to upstream monitoring systems like BMC Patrol, CA Spectrum, Tivoli, etc.Use of Solution:I've been using it for three years.Deployment Issues:With the deployment, it was only doing the design that took a while to build. It was a very particular client with a not so good network, so we had to work around that, but Citrix adjusted perfectly, for every issue we found when designing XenDesktop had a feature to make it happen.Stability Issues:XenDesktop is a very mature product and since implementation early last year, we've only had couple of issues that required our attention. As the solution was built with High Availability in mind, we only suffered from a degradation in service rather than a full outage of the system.Scalability Issues:If you need more hosted shared desktops, boom it's really easy, and only takes couple of clicks and in minutes the new workloads are available and ready to be used.Technical Support:Excellent, Citrix support guys are top of the line, and when we required a Citrix Consultant on premises, Citrix sent one straight away to assist us.Previous Solutions:Previously, I used VMware Horizon View. This solution is simple and elegant, but it lacks the robustness Citrix has. Protocols and features to improve user experience when the network is not the best, are features that VMware has but they are not as effective as Citrix ones. The ICA protocol from Citrix has been maturing for many years, and the amount of settings you can tweak to deliver a great user experience is incredible. It can be a bit complicated, but if you work with the product you can work out what option suits best your scenario. VMware is still behind but let’s not think it is the underdog as they are gaining market share and it is a cheaper solution than Citrix.Initial Setup:After the design was built, agreed upon, and firewall rules were defined, deployment of the solution was a breeze. Having XenDesktop running on top of XenServer as native hypervisor is the best way to go. When machines are created via MCS or PVS you don’t need to do anything else for the VMs to be created as XenDesktop talks directly to the hypervisor and instructs it to create whatever workloads you need on the fly.Implementation Team:The implementation was done in-house mostly, however with the design considerations we approached Citrix for assistance and to confirm whether or notour design considerations were following best practices. One thing to consider when implementing Citrix and a set of policies is that if it is a big environment, you are deploying, please ensure that the person or team that's doing the design knows what they are doing. Citrix works marvellously when properly configured but if not, you will find a world of trouble trying to make it work as you want.For implementation, my advice is if you are designing a big environment contact Citrix Professional Services. If you're not sure on some aspects of your design, and have a CCE-V in your team, this is the key person to contact when doing a design for a large environment - 5000+ workloads for desktop or server.Cost and Licensing Advice:Citrix is a pricey product, but it is the best product for large corporate companies that want to squeeze to the last buck the life of their existing computers. Using Citrix allows medium to large companies to save money when computer hardware refreshes need to happen; Using shared desktops with Windows Server 2012 R2 as OS you can provision this for a large fleet of users that are probably still using a Windows XP computer but the user experience they will have will be like using Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 if you use the latest version of XenDesktopOther Advice:Plan your budget, and do a PoC first if possible to get key users feedback, work with Citrix licensing team to find out what best license scheme adjust to your needs, don’t go out and buy the Enterprise license because it has it all, check first what your design requires and after that make an informed decision.Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:We are Platinum partners of Citrix and their support and guidance for us have being invaluable to our success.

Date published: 2016-09-27

Rated 4 out of 5 by Edgar Parra from The Provisioning Services and Machine Creation Services features allow you to provision workloads by following a wizard, and depending of what you have in your environment.Valuable Features:The Provisioning Services and Machine Creation Services features allow you to provision workloads just by following a wizard, and most importantly depending of what you have in your environment, either a below average network (Machine Creation Services) or fast and large storage (Provisioning Services). You are able to use either one of them to improve the time it takes to build workloads and make them available to users.Improvements to My Organization:One of our clients where we implemented XenDesktop has a highly mobile fleet of users, and providing access to shared desktops either via Wyse terminals or tablets has really shown what a difference in improving efficiency and reliability can do to a system. What we love the most about XenDesktop is the simple and easy way to scale on-demand depending on the workload.Room for Improvement:Citrix Director, which is like the monitoring interface from Citrix could use a revamp in the way that it displays information. The display is not very intuitive, and it could also have better integration with SCOM via Comtrade MP (now Citrix) and other monitoring tools. This is in progress with v7.8 using SNMP traps which will allow Director to talk to upstream monitoring systems like BMC Patrol, CA Spectrum, Tivoli, etc.Use of Solution:I've been using it for three years.Deployment Issues:With the deployment, it was only doing the design that took a while to build. It was a very particular client with a not so good network, so we had to work around that, but Citrix adjusted perfectly, for every issue we found when designing XenDesktop had a feature to make it happen.Stability Issues:XenDesktop is a very mature product and since implementation early last year, we've only had couple of issues that required our attention. As the solution was built with High Availability in mind, we only suffered from a degradation in service rather than a full outage of the system.Scalability Issues:If you need more hosted shared desktops, boom it's really easy, and only takes couple of clicks and in minutes the new workloads are available and ready to be used.Technical Support:Excellent, Citrix support guys are top of the line, and when we required a Citrix Consultant on premises, Citrix sent one straight away to assist us.Previous Solutions:Previously, I used VMware Horizon View. This solution is simple and elegant, but it lacks the robustness Citrix has. Protocols and features to improve user experience when the network is not the best, are features that VMware has but they are not as effective as Citrix ones. The ICA protocol from Citrix has been maturing for many years, and the amount of settings you can tweak to deliver a great user experience is incredible. It can be a bit complicated, but if you work with the product you can work out what option suits best your scenario. VMware is still behind but let’s not think it is the underdog as they are gaining market share and it is a cheaper solution than Citrix.Initial Setup:After the design was built, agreed upon, and firewall rules were defined, deployment of the solution was a breeze. Having XenDesktop running on top of XenServer as native hypervisor is the best way to go. When machines are created via MCS or PVS you don’t need to do anything else for the VMs to be created as XenDesktop talks directly to the hypervisor and instructs it to create whatever workloads you need on the fly.Implementation Team:The implementation was done in-house mostly, however with the design considerations we approached Citrix for assistance and to confirm whether or notour design considerations were following best practices. One thing to consider when implementing Citrix and a set of policies is that if it is a big environment, you are deploying, please ensure that the person or team that's doing the design knows what they are doing. Citrix works marvellously when properly configured but if not, you will find a world of trouble trying to make it work as you want.For implementation, my advice is if you are designing a big environment contact Citrix Professional Services. If you're not sure on some aspects of your design, and have a CCE-V in your team, this is the key person to contact when doing a design for a large environment - 5000+ workloads for desktop or server.Cost and Licensing Advice:Citrix is a pricey product, but it is the best product for large corporate companies that want to squeeze to the last buck the life of their existing computers. Using Citrix allows medium to large companies to save money when computer hardware refreshes need to happen; Using shared desktops with Windows Server 2012 R2 as OS you can provision this for a large fleet of users that are probably still using a Windows XP computer but the user experience they will have will be like using Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 if you use the latest version of XenDesktopOther Advice:Plan your budget, and do a PoC first if possible to get key users feedback, work with Citrix licensing team to find out what best license scheme adjust to your needs, don’t go out and buy the Enterprise license because it has it all, check first what your design requires and after that make an informed decision.Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:We are Platinum partners of Citrix and their support and guidance for us have being invaluable to our success.

Date published: 2016-05-10

Rated 4 out of 5 by Shailesh Surroop from We've found it to be extremely versatile and efficient, but the studio is very slow.Valuable Features:The central administration and deployment of desktops and apps. XenDesktop gives a full desktop experience i.e. the user gets a Windows machine with a C drive and loaded with a set of applications such as mail, productivity suites and access to files.Improvements to My Organization:We have 12 offices around the island, and users able to connect to the same desktop and access their apps and files from any of these locations. Road warriors get access to the insurance apps on their mobile devices of any OS.Room for Improvement:The studio is very slow.Use of Solution:We've been using it since May 2010, alongside XenApp and XenServer.Deployment Issues:From an administrative point of view, it is easy to deploy and maintain.Stability Issues:In the beginning yes, especially if you are running a large number of desktops.Scalability Issues:No issues encountered, and we run 600 virtual desktops.Customer Service:8/10.Technical Support:10/10.Previous Solutions:No, but we did try VMWare View as well as part of a lengthy POC. Citrix XenDesktop & XenApp came out on top.Initial Setup:It was a straightforward wizard-based setup.Implementation Team:We used a mix of a vendor and an in-house one. The vendor was excellent, and they advised on the right architecture for performance and scalability, so I would give them a 10/10.ROI:It's reduced the PC maintenance and upgrade costs by two or three times.Cost and Licensing Advice:Carefully make the distinction between XenApp and XenDesktop. XenApp uses a mix of Microsoft RDS and Citrix to provision the service so this increases the licensing cost, as well as the amount of administration behind it.Other Solutions Considered:* VMWare View* Kaviza Desktop (later bought by Citrix)You should also have a look at Atlantis Computing as well. XenDesktop is deployed along Atlantis ILIO, which is phenomenal.Other Advice:The infrastructure for both XenApp and XenDesktop must be carefully designed.Carefully select the components for the architecture. Running virtual desktops or apps require careful planning and sizing. We found SSD disk to be extremely appropriate.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.